


Moving on

by mistressterably



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistressterably/pseuds/mistressterably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just after Hell Bent and the Doctor is still unsettled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving on

The sounds coming from the guitar amp were sad, solemn but still had a sense of joy and love in them. His fingers were growing more calloused now from playing. The haunted feeling remained as a shadow in his thoughts. It was ephemeral, uncatchable by his consciousness. When it got bad for him he would pick up the guitar and play. It was the same sequence all the time. Sure, he knew other songs. Sure, he could play them. He still did at times. But when the grey clouds descended over him, he could only play this one song until it lifted. 

As the song ended, the last notes echoing in the console room, the Doctor sat for a moment on the steps, stroking the guitar. Then, with a quick movement, he stood up and swung the guitar around to his back. The heels of his boots clicked on the floor as he walked around and around the console. His eyes drew up to the top of the time rotor. The carved names of all his companions to date moved slowly around. He saw the name : Clara. But unlike the other names that would make him smile, happily or sadly depending on what memory came to mind at that moment. But not Clara. Emptiness. He could recall adventures where she had been there but aside from remember her being there there were no other details. There but not there. 

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut tightly. At first he had done that, trying so very hard to remember but he never succeeded in anything more than pushing himself into the grey mood. 

His steps took him to the telepathic interface panel. With his right hand resting on the guitar and his left hand ran over the contours of the interface. A soft red glow began to pulse under his touch. He smiled wryly. The TARDIS already knew what he was going to try and do. ‘Ah, sexy. Trying to tell me something?’ He muttered aloud and was greeted by the deepening red glow of the console. ‘I have to try.’ He said. ‘I have to try.’

Closing his eyes, his fingers slipped into the interface. Tilting his head back, his mouth opened in a silent cry as the TARDIS flooded into his thoughts. The interface gripped his fingers tightly. Now that he had taken this step, the TARDIS was going to force him to finish it. But it wasn’t what he expected to find out. It wound up the TARDIS pulling more from him than him from it. 

The TARDIS took the memories left to him and began to fill in the blanks that he needed to settle his memories but in a way that made sense around the neural block. He knees began to buckle but still the TARDIS wouldn’t let him go. ‘Yes! Yes! Please!’ He cried out. The Doctor needed this pain, this rewriting of events to fit around the emptiness. Like the pages of a book being edited into the third person, impersonal and factual. 

Finally, the TARDIS released him. Slumped to the floor, his hands gripping the console, the Doctor closed his eyes tightly. Kneeling on the floor, he swung the guitar around. The song, Clara, rang through his head more clearly now and he played it loudly. Not with the slow, sad pace he had before but faster and more joyfully. 

He still couldn’t remember her. He knew that she would only ever be a feeling left in his heart and in his soul but he could move on. And the song rang out.


End file.
